UPDATE: We've added a video of Thomas Heatherwick explaining the design of "Vessel," after the break!
Thomas Heatherwick is bringing a new public monument to New York City. Today, Heatherwick Studio revealed the first renderings of “Vessel,” a 15-story tall occupiable sculpture comprised of 154 intricately interconnecting flights of stairs that will serve as the centerpiece of the new Hudson Yards development in west Manhattan.
Can a building help stem the tide of large epidemics?
In 2010, in the midst of the world’s worst cholera outbreak in over a century, MASS Design Group was challenged to design a cholera treatment center where the construction process, as well as the finished building, could address the underlying structural and social conditions that allow cholera to thrive.
This is the subject of Design that Heals, a new documentary that portrays the challenges, innovations, and triumph of the project, proving that, “Architecture and health are inseparable.” (Dr. Jean-William Pape, GHESKIO founder)
The 31-minute film, an official New York 2016 Architecture and Design Film Festival selection, will premiere September 29th at 6:30 and October 1st and 7:30. Screenings will be held at Cinépolis Chelsea, 260 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10011.
REX has released images of the future Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center (The Perelman Center), located on the World Trade Center site in New York City. Located between the gleaming glass tower of One World Trade and the future Two World Trade Center, the Perelman Center takes on a solid, pure form as it is set to become a new home for theater, dance, music, film, opera, and multidisciplinary works for visitors and residents of Lower Manhattan.
Instagram photo by Christopher Beckman * Aug 21, 2016 at 9:33pm UTC
Almost four months after going up in flames, the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava has begun the process of rebuilding in the Flatiron district of New York. On the night of May 1, a four-alarm fire blazed through the 1851 building by Richard Upjohn, burning the majority of the church.
In the time since the fire—which was caused accidentally by improperly extinguished candles—church officials have been working with city government agencies and have determined that the addition of metal beams and other small reinforcements will be sufficient to salvage the remaining structure of the church.
Adding to the ever-changing public landscape of Times Square, German artist and architect J. Mayer H. has unveiled XXX TIMES SQUARE WITH LOVE, three bright-pink, X-shaped custom lounge chairs that allow visitors to lie back and take in the cacophony of lights and sounds for which Times Square is famous. Originally inspired by the “X-like” intersection of Broadway and 7th Avenue, the name also serves as a cheeky reference to the adult theaters and sex shops that once lined the square before its revitalization in the 1990s.
From the skyline of the Financial District, to the Flatiron Building, Grand Central Station, the Brooklyn Bridge, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Kyoung Sop Choi from Jansoli Photography has captured New York City in spectacular 8K high-definition resolution. During a winter trip to the City, Choi filmed streets, buildings, and pedestrians in a series of time-lapses to express the colors of New York. Experience the bustle and vibrancy of the city by watching the video, above.
Hufton+Crow have shared with us their latest set of photographs: Santiago Calatrava’s World Trade Center Transportation Hub in New York City. Hardly requiring an introduction, the spiky structure has opened in stages since last year to mixed critical response, with new retail spaces lining the central “Oculus” space debuting to the public earlier this month.
Continue on for the British duo’s photographic impressions of the ribbed structure.
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Following the burgeoning success of the 7th New York Architecture and Design Film Festival (ADFF), this year's incarnation—which will run September 28 through October 2 2016 at Cinépolis Chelsea—appears set to maintain its position as the nation's and most popular largest subject-focused film event. Over 30 feature-length and short films, curated by Festival Director Kyle Bergman, will be presented, including Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future, a film that examines the life of the eponymous modernist architect.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation and People for the Pavilion have announced the winners of the New York State Pavilion Ideas Competition in the Queens borough of New York.
Sponsored by Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, the competition called for creative ideas to reimagine Philip Johnson’s New York State Pavilion, a “forgotten star” of the 1964-65 World’s Fair.
Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group has released a new animation of “The Shed” (previously known as “The Culture Shed”), a convertible cultural center designed for New York City’s Hudson Yards development overlooking The High Line. When complete, the building will contain 170,000 square feet of exhibition space for temporary installations, concerts, performances and other cultural productions. Watch in the video as The Shed grows out of its partnering residential skyscraper, also designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Rockwell Group, and transforms to serve various program types.
A part of Phase 1 of the Hudson Yards project, construction on The Shed began in mid-2015 and is scheduled to be completed in 2019. The venue will serve as the new home of several high profile events, including New York Fashion Week.
CetraRuddy has been selected to design a new 18-story office building in Manhattan’s trendy Meatpacking District. With plans filed before zoning ordinances in the area changed the height limit to 130 feet, the project will feature an extra 140 feet, with a total height of 270 feet.
Located on West 15th Street near Ninth Avenue, the office building—which was previously designed as a hotel—will connect to a landmark district building on West 14th Street, which will be renovated as a part of the project. Together, the two buildings will feature 250,000 square feet of office space with a landscaped rooftop and an additional five terraces for communal work and relaxation areas.
A new landmark on the Brooklyn skyline, TEN Arquitectos’ DBCD (Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District) South building at 300 Ashland, is nearing completion, with tenants expected to move in by the end of the summer. The mixed-use building will feature 379 apartment units and will also become the new home of a number of cultural tenants, including the performing arts organization 651 Arts, MoCADA, Brooklyn Academy of Music cinemas, and a new branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.
Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development Alicia Glen and NYCEDC President Maria Torres-Springer have announced New York City’s first official approval of the Lowline project in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. As the first major step in making the project a reality, the approval will help to create the world’s first underground park, a community-oriented public and cultural space that will become both a local resource and an attraction for worldwide visitors.
Although the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) did express interest in the space last fall, the Lowline team was awarded conditional use due its high community potential.
The latest stage of the Governors Island Park project, “The Hills,” is set to officially open to the public on this Tuesday July 19th – nearly a year ahead of schedule. Designed by internationally acclaimed urban design and landscape firm West 8, the park will feature ten acres of sloping landscapes that will provide residents and visitors with slides, art and unparalleled views of the New York Harbor.
When we started talking about migration [as a conference theme], everybody said ‘don’t do it, it’s too controversial.’ We said that’s exactly why we’re going to do it.
This defiant attitude was how Martin Barry, Chairman of reSITE, opened their 2016 Conference in Prague three weeks ago. Entitled “Cities in Migration,” the conference took place against a background of an almost uncountable number of challenging political issues related to migration. In Europe, the unfolding Syrian refugee crisis has strained both political and race relations across the continent; in America, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump has led a populist knee-jerk reaction against both Mexicans and Muslims; and in the United Kingdom—a country only on the periphery of most attendees’ consciousness at the time—the decision in favor of “Brexit” that took place a week after the conference was largely predicated upon limiting the immigration of not only Syrians, but also of European citizens from other, less wealthy EU countries.
In architecture, such issues have been highlighted this year by Alejandro Aravena’s Venice Biennale, with architects “Reporting from the Front” in battles against, among other things, these migration-related challenges. From refugee camps to slums to housing crises in rich global cities, the message is clear: migration is a topic that architects must understand and respond to. As a result, the lessons shared during reSITE’s intensive two-day event will undoubtedly be invaluable to the architectural profession.
The New York Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) has approved Stephen Wang + Associates and Herzog & de Meuron’s townhouse transformation project on New York’s Upper East Side.
Located at 15 East and 75th Street, the project entails combining three separate townhomes -- two Queen Anne-style, and one Neo-Federal -- into one large home for Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.
Spanish, New York-based architect Andrés Jaque (Office for Political Innovation) has been awarded the 10th Kiesler Architecture and Art Prize by the Mayor of Vienna, citing Jaque’s "capacity to go beyond assumptions about traditional practice and urban life." In 2015 Jaque was declared the MoMA PS1 YAP (Young Architects Programme) winner for COSMO – a complex, and beautiful, water purifying prototype that has been installed in Brooklyn. He and his office are also collaborating with Mark Wigley and Beatriz Colomina on the design for the upcoming Istanbul Design Biennial, Are We Human?
A new video by JDS Development Group, Building Knowhow: Skybridge, begins with an anecdote of a day when the firemen showed up at the site. “We got a call – the buildings are falling down!” the chief fireman told Michael Jones, director of JDS. Jones responded with a chuckle, "they're supposed to be like that!"
Located on the East Side of Manhattan, the American Copper Buildings, designed by New York-based SHoP Architects, test the boundaries of engineering. In an informative video, JDS Development Group documents the building of a skybridge between the towers, outlining their detail-oriented, step-by-step approach. Located 300 feet in the air, it is New York's first major skybridge in 80 years.
